GHG Emissions, Industrial  -  April 12, 2017

Global food company fires up Illinois CCS project

In an effort to reduce carbon emissions associated with its operations, agricultural processor and food ingredient provider Archer Daniels Midland Co. has started operations at its second industrial carbon capture and storage, or CCS, project. 

The project, now operating at the company's corn processing facility in Decatur, Illinois, is expected to safely and permanently store more than one million tons of carbon dioxide per year, according to an April 7 news release from Archer Daniels Midland about the project. The company partnered with the U.S. Department of Energy, Richland Community College and the University of Illinois on the CCS project. 

"We are extremely proud to be part of this important program," Archer Daniels Midland Chief Technology Officer Todd Werpy said in a statement. "The technology that we are using in Decatur can be a model for reducing industrial carbon emissions around the world. We're pleased to be working with great partners ... and we're excited to move forward as we not only reduce our carbon emissions in Decatur, but also contribute to important research that will help other companies do the same."

The project captures carbon dioxide, which is created as a byproduct at the Decatur corn processing facility, and stores it safely almost a mile and a half underground in the Mt. Simon Sandstone. With the capability to store 1.1 million tons of carbon annually, ICCS is designed to demonstrate the commercial-scale applicability of carbon capture and storage technology in a saline reservoir.

Calling 2017 "a watershed year for carbon capture in the United States," Jeff Erikson, general manager of the Americas region with the Global CCS Institute said the project is the 12th large-scale CCS facility operating in North America, and the first large-scale application of CCS on biofuels production in the world.

The project is currently permitted to operate for five years and has the potential to store up to 5.5 million tons of carbon dioxide, according to Archer Daniels Midland. 

The company's first CCS project removed and stored approximately a million tons of carbon over three years as part of the smaller-scale Illinois Basin – Decatur Project, which was led by the Midwest Geological Sequestration Consortium at the University of Illinois.

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